A Letter From Azkaban
by inkmonkey
Summary: In his cell, Snape writes.
1. A Letter From Azkaban

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

A/N: This was originally intended to have a companion story about Hermione Granger, but I doubt that it will ever materialize, so I have gone ahead and published this. It is set sometime after the end of the war; Snape has been captured and condemned to life in Azkaban.

Dear Albus-

It is probably the height of foolishness, to be writing to someone who is not only dead, but whom I killed, but I no longer care. It is a distraction from the cold of an Azkaban winter; that serves as a good enough excuse, at least to myself. Of course, my sanity might be shaky; these days, who can tell? The Dementors seem to affect me less than the others in the maximum security wing, but I might just be so far gone that they want nothing to do with me. Which leads me to wonder, if the Dementors want nothing to do with me, why would Miss Granger? Because it is she who has brought me this parchment. Of course, you, watching twinkly-eyed from Heaven, know this.

The reason I am explaining is that I expect this letter to be found after my death. A post mortem vindication, if you will; I have always, justly, felt myself to be misunderstood. It is my own fault; I have never tried to explain, or justify myself. I realize, after the introspection brought on by this place, that I ought not to have expected the world to instantly comprehended the suffering that made me who I am. Even you, with your all-knowing demeanor, cannot have known of everything. You cannot have known what it was like, growing up at Spinner's End.

My parents' marriage was not a particularly happy one, That much, Albus, you know. My mother had always looked slightly condescendingly on Muggles, and my father was not excluded. I am uncertain why they married, but my birth some six months later seems the most likely reason. Due to their mutual resentment, they rarely spoke, to me or to one another. As a result, I did not learn to speak until the age of six. That must surprise you, Albus, knowing that one who has always relied so heavily on his facility with words was so slow learning to use them.

Between my relatively recently acquired speech and my near-complete lack of socialization, is it any surprise that I could not cope with Hogwarts? I had never before met someone my age, and I dealt very badly indeed with crowds, which were also new to me. It was my perpetual flinching that first drew Potter's attention; of that I am certain. I remember, very clearly, hearing him say, "Look at him, the ugly little freak, always twitching and snivelling. I hate people like that." It is one of the memories that the Dementors have seized upon, as probably one of the most miserable in my life.

Until that point, I had believed that people did not like me because I did not particularly like them. The idea that I could not have friends even if I wanted them nearly broke my heart. Heart? Yes, I have a heart; however battered and atrophied it may be, it is still there, and it still beats. It might not be in such poor condition now if I had anyone to turn to then. Despite your frequent claims to the contrary, Albus, you were never neutral. There was never a time when you did not believe a Gryffindor's story over a Slytherin's, or a single occasion when you gave a Slytherin the benefit of the doubt.

I frquently, and not of my accord, think back to that great turning point of my life, the werewolf incident. It would have been more merciful, Albus, if you had simply obliviated me, and said that I had been caught out past curfew. It was that night, and the way you treated it as merely a prank gone wrong, that finally convinced that there was no place on the side of light for a half-blood Slytherin. Are Slytherins so worthless that the attempted murder of one of their number bears no significance? Shakespeare said it best: "If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

I have had my revenge in spades; Potter is dead, Black has fallen through the veil, Lupin is old before his time, and Pettigrew, poor, pathetic Pettigrew, has become more rat than man. And you, who were my downfall and my redeemer, I have had my revenge on you. Not by being the cause of your death, although that was satisfying enough, but by proving you wrong. You have always shown yourself to believe that only Gryffindors can be heroes, but what greater heroism is there than sacrificing what you treasure most, be it your life or your love?

I have held my intellect as my most precious possession, and here, in a prison to which I went willingly, I feel it slipping away. You knew that you would have to die for the Potter boy to ever be willing to take charge; I do not question that. The way he acts around you makes it perfectly clear that he would be happy to follow your orders forever. You chose me to be the instrument of his liberation from your leading strings, and at the same time, to be the instrument of your death. I will not pretend that I did not do it willingly, Albus. I had my own reasons; chiefly to protect Draco, whom your caprices have so damaged.

I know that you did not do it intentionally, but the way you have so heavily and blatantly favored the Gryffindors in recent years, and Potter especially, has jaded more young minds than you will ever know. There is not, or there was not during my last year teaching, a single Slytherin who believed that he or she will ever be treated fairly. For this, Albus, I lay the blame squarely at your feet. You know, or you should know, that to a Slytherin, dignity, or the appearance of dignity, is everything. How do you think it felt, watching the faces of children as young as eleven harden and grow cold because you felt the need to publicly humiliate them?

You know what I'm referring to, Albus. The end of Potter's first year, my Slytherins had won the House Cup fairly, and you felt the need, for some unknown reason, to award points to Potter, and thus Gryffindor, for violations of the rules that would have resulted in the expulsion of any other student. If that were not enough, you went on to award points to Weasley, Granger and Longbottom, enough points to alter the standings for the Cup in Gryffindor's favor. After that display, your name was mud in Slytherin, even with the children of Light parents. The Bullstrodes, the Flints, the Zabinis... They are all Light families, yet I was present when Millicent, Marcus and Blaise received their Dark Marks. I wonder why?

Of your failings, Albus, the one that is most common has done the most harm. Your favoritism has cost lives; when I still believed in the deranged ramblings of the half-mad, half-dead creature known as Voldemort, I took a vicious pleasure in destroying Gryffindors, and ones you had favored in particular. I would have given anything to be the recipient of such affection, however misguided, and if I could could not have it, no one could. You have destroyed faith and twisted souls, Albus; you have created an army for the one person you truly hate, and you never even realized you doing it.

I am running out of parchment now, and it is nearly too dark to write anyway. Bearing in mind that I have not, and never was, allowed a lawyer, I leave all my worldly goods, save my books, to Draco Malfoy, whom I have failed to protect. I bequeath my books and this letter to Miss Hermione Granger, who will get the most and best use from them, and who has done me the kindness of giving me this parchment.

Severus Septimus Snape


	2. A Visit to Azkaban

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

A/N: I never thought that I would get around to writing this, but I have. Here it is, at long last: the companion piece to 'A Letter from Azkaban'.

Hermione looked at the wasted man in the cell, and felt a knot form in her stomach. He sat there on the cot, desperately maintaining a defiant glare, holding his back ramrod straight. Faded rags hung limply on a once slender, but now merely emaciated, frame. Severus Snape had been one of the little tin gods of her childhood, placed on a pedestal, with every word out of his mouth treated like the uttering of an oracle. And it had all come down to this; an office job for her and a slow, tortuous death for him.

Oh, they said that his sentence was life in Azkaban, but cold and malnutrition and simple despair would cut the thread of his life far shorter than it ought to have been. He still wore the remains of the high collared black robes he'd worn at his mockery of a trial five years ago, the robes he'd been captured in. He'd been caught eighteen months after his crime, sitting calmly in the book-lined front room of his house at Spinner's End. Tonks and Kingsley had been the ones to get him, and the way Tonks told it, he'd just looked up at them and asked, "What took you so long?"

Hermione had to admire the panache, the absolute _nerve_, it must have taken to say something like that. She knew all too well that he'd regretted it quickly, when Harry, the victorious hero to whom nothing could be denied, had asked for a few minutes alone with him. She'd stood outside the door, and forced herself to listen, as her best friend beat and tortured a man who was chained to a wall. That was the day she had, at long last, lost her idealism. She had looked in the mirror and flinched away, knowing that despite all she said and did, she was still too much of a coward to do the right thing.

Since then, she'd been wandering through her life in a trance, focused inwards, examining her own failings and wondering if there was anything she could have done to prevent them. Her thoughts always turned to Snape, painfully and inescapably. Despite what he'd done, or was accused of doing, she felt pity for him, and revulsion at herself for doing so. Not because he didn't deserve pity, but because pitying someone so much stronger than she felt horribly _wrong_.

He'd seemed so unreachable, so untouchable, an impression that had lasted only a few weeks, but even now lingered in her subconscious. The way he'd eyed her after Dumbledore had told him just who, exactly, had deciphered his puzzle, a mixture of respect and anger, was burned into her mind. It had been an exultation, a realization, that yes, she was capable of having an effect on her professor.

The next year, she'd had even more proof. He'd stared at her in awed resentment, even as he tried to create an antidote for botched Polyjuice. They had actually had a brief but civil conversation, terminated only by her declaration that Ron and Harry's doses of the potion had worked perfectly. His face had frozen then, returning to its usual hostile mask, and she knew she'd made a mistake she had no chance of undoing. She had never stopped regretting that, and it galled her to confess, even to herself, that it was not from some noble motive, but curiosity, pure and simple.

After that, she had only had occasional glimpses into the depths of the man who had begun to intrigue her. The way he had tormented Neville, the way he needled Harry, the way he would _look_ at her when she made a mistake, as if to say, "You can do better than that." Above all, she remembered, oh so vividly, the single, disappointed look Snape had given her after she'd become Ron's girlfriend. That had hurt, knowing that she had in some obscure way let this enigmatic man down.

She had, somewhere along the way, allowed impressing Snape to become one of her most deeply held ambitions. It was not only the sheer difficulty, if not impossibility, of doing so that appealed to her. No, it was the idea that he was a double agent, a dashing and romantic figure, that had influenced her. She had longed to be the one in whom he confided, the one to whom he told the gory details of she was convinced was horrific torture. She had even, in her more foolish and fantastic moments, dreamed that he would sweep her off her feet to some manor house and make her Lady Snape.

The one after the other revelations of the end of her sixth year had smashed her world, and replaced it with a new and darker one. Snape was not their man in the enemy's camp; he was the enemy, and something to destroy at all costs. Still she could not suppress her admiration of the sheer sang-froid he must have possessed. She knew that if she had been the one to locate Snape she would have let him go free, and the knowledge rankled. She knew that she had had morals and ideals once, she could remember having them, but they were nowhere in evidence.

Instead, searching deep within her soul, all she could find was a tired pragmatism and a determination to finish the job and have her well-deserved, in her own opinion, rest. She looked ahead, and the years stretched to infinity, endless years of sitting at her desk and filling out forms, without a trace of glamour, glory or being proven right ahead. She would do it, to prove to herself that she could, but her heart and soul would never be in it. There would never be another back-handed compliment or look laden with grudging approval from her judge of choice; she had only her own yardstick to lay herself against now, and only her own praise to give herself.

Snape coughed, hacking and gasping for breath, and Hermione snapped from her reverie, wincing. He had the sound of one not long for this world, of lungs ruined by damp, and she felt the impending loss keenly. She cleared her own throat in sympathy, and he looked up at her, startled. His hair hung in rats' nests around his face, and his eyes were sunken, but they still held recognition. He nodded slightly. "Miss Granger." He cocked his head. "Or is it Mrs. Weasley now?"

She shook her, her mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "No, not Mrs. Weasley. Never Mrs. Weasley. It will always be Miss Granger."

He gave her an approving look, and she tried to memorize the every contour of his face, aware that this was likely the last time she would ever see it. A corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "You would have been wasted as a wife and mother. The world deserves far more of you than that."

She snorted. "And what, precisely, does it deserve of me? My despair? My foolish idealism? My moral cowardice?"

He stood, gripping the bars and leaning as close to her as he could. "Never say that, Miss Granger, _never._" he hissed. "You have more moral courage than I ever did. _You_ have never renounced, _denounced_ your friends to save yourself, and the girl I knew would never even consider it. _You_ would never let yourself be coerced into doing the unthinkable." He looked her up and down coldly, almost clinically. "I'm sure the idealism is still in there somewhere as well, Miss Granger. It is for you to find it."

She gave him a skeptical look. "And what do I do with it once I've found it?" she challenged him.

"You got out, and you right all the world's wrongs. As I recall, that used to be a hobby if yours." he sneered, and for a moment, it was as if they were back at Hogwarts. Then his face settled back into its tired, strained lines. "May I suggest reforming the justice system, or perhaps the prisons?" She shrugged, not wanting to deny him. "Is there a reason you're here, Miss Granger?"

She froze. If she told him that she'd just wanted to see him, he'd laugh at her, as far as anyone _could_ laugh in Azkaban. Desperate to save face, she fumbled in her bag, and withdrew a spare scroll and her ever-inking quill. "I wanted you to have these." She thrust them through the bars of the cell, and he grasped them with a look of wonder on his face.

"I am... most grateful, Miss Granger." he said, and if she didn't know him better, she would say he was choked up. "_Most_ grateful."

She nodded and turned, unable to bear the sight of her fallen idol any longer. "Goodbye, Professor Snape."

"Farewell, Miss Granger."


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

A/N: I didn't actually mean for this to turn into a multi-chaptered fic, but it has, and I can't say I'm unhappy about it. The first chapter of this got more reviews than all eleven chapters of my other long story, which both surprises and pleases me; when I first posted this, I didn't actually think it was that good. Guess I'm wrong, huh?

Hermione carefully closed the door of her apartment behind her, put the kettle on for tea, and collapsed on the sofa. She wept, hunched over with her arms wrapped around herself, trying to curl into herself and hide from her grief. Gasping, choking sobs wrenched from her chest. She shoved her fist into her mouth to try to stifle the shameful, incriminating sounds. She rocked slowly back and forth, her sorrow slowly receding to more manageable levels. At last Hermione was still, sitting and staring into nothingness.

It had been the first time she had allowed herself to cry since Ron. Those had been tears of betrayal and anger, but this, this was pure and unalloyed pain. She would never see him again, never be able to vindicate him, and never be able to prove to herself that her faith had not been misplaced. When the courier had come earlier that day, announcing to all and sundry that Snape, the only man more reviled than the Dark Lord, was dead, she had been unable to respond. Thankfully, it had been mistaken for disbelief, instead of the misery it was. If anyone had known, had guessed, or even suspected that Hermione felt anything but the sheerest bliss at Snape's death, her career would have been destroyed. No, not only her career, but her life in the Wizarding World would have been at stake.

The kettle whistled, loud and shrill, breaking her from her trance. She moved mindlessly to the kitchenette. She poured the water into her mug, and sat at the tiny table. Hermione gazed blindly at the photographs that hung on the wall, mementos of a happier time. Her and Viktor in their formalwear, smiling self-consciously at the camera. Her in the library, caught unawares, bent over a book. Harry and Ginny dancing at Bill's wedding. She sighed and looked away. She didn't want to think about Harry, not when she was already upset. Her eyes fell on the place where a photo of Ron had once been. She stood up and moved into the living room. Thinking about Ron was even worse than thinking about Harry; Harry may have been a threat to the wizarding world, but Ron was _personal_.

Her eyes narrowed as she thought of her ex-fiancé and his new wife. She should have realized that Ron would never voluntarily put in overtime; it was completely incongruous with his usual behavior. But oh, she'd wanted to believe he was trying, and she had convinced herself so thoroughly that she was actually _surprised_ when she went to his cubicle and found him with Lavender. He had paid, of course. No matter how hard he'd tried, she'd always been a faster draw. Between that, and the 'Oathbreaker' emblazoned across his forehead, his inferiority complex had almost certainly grown to epic proportions. That had helped assuage her wounded pride, but the way none of the Weasleys would speak to her afterwards hurt.

She took a sip of her tea and squared her shoulders, deliberately pushing her pain to the back of her mind. It had been nearly a year since Snape had told her to try and make the world a better place, and it was by far the most daunting assignment he had ever given her. Her progress, or rather, her lack thereof, was frustrating, as was the lack of public recognition she had always thrived on. She knew that if what she were doing came to the attention of her superiors, she would share Snape's fate, but oh, it rankled. Working undercover was alien to her personality, and being deprived of the praise she knew she deserved was absolute torture.

Her mind flicked to the way some people looked after Harry interrogated them, and she shied away from the torture comparison. Compared to fingers bent into unnatural positions and broken noses leaning at grotesque angles, her sufferings were a mere annoyance. Compared to what Snape had gone through... well, there was no comparison. High Inquisitor Potter may have been cruel to everyone, but what he'd done to Snape, his very first victim, was terrifying. Given less than a quarter of an hour he'd reduced Snape to a moaning, bleeding heap on the floor, and he'd so done while she listened.

Hermione took a deep breath. Yes, she was partially to blame. Yes, she should have tried to stop him. But gods above, she hadn't known that he'd turn into this. She'd thought that Snape was the exception, not the rule, and look what that had gotten her. What it had gotten all of them. She, like everyone else, had expected Harry to be another Dumbledore. Instead, after Dumbledore's death, he had become a combination of all the worst traits of Mad-Eye Moody and Dolores Umbridge. With the former's hatred of Dark wizards and the latter's taste for cruelty and power, he ruled the Ministry with an iron fist. Second only to the Minister, his status as 'The Chosen One' was propelling him ever higher.

Hermione stood, taking her mug of tea, now cold, to the sink and rinsing it out. It was late and she needed to get a few hours sleep before she went in to work. The Department of Dark Magic Eradication may have been under Harry's direct control, but she knew that if she got behind, her old friend would not hesitate to replace her. Especially if she failed her current assignment, to find and destroy the last scion of the Malfoy line. She had never expected to feel sorry for a bigoted prick like Draco Malfoy. However, she wouldn't wish the fate she knew was in store for him on anyone, let alone someone she knew and had the occasional semi-civil conversation with.

Going into the bedroom, she dropped her clothes on the floor by the bed and laid down, not bothering with the covers. She breathed slowly, in and out, focusing on the sound of her inhalations, using it to drive everything else out of her head. No more pain, no more grief, no more regret. She would worry about it tomorrow, when she was ready to deal with it properly. Then, she promised herself she would begin fulfilling her promise to Professor Snape. She might never succeed, but she was more than willing to go out in a blaze of glory. The thought made her smile slightly and she relaxed further, knowing that no matter what happened, she would come out ahead. Reform or glory, they were both good.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Hermione was at her desk, reading the latest report from her agents in the field. They were in America, tracking down someone who claimed to have seen Malfoy in New York. She hoped and prayed he was; the US was one of the few countries which refused to sign extradition treaties with Britain. They had moral objections to torture, which pleased her and bewildered Harry. After all, he said, they were only dark wizards, not real human beings at all. They'd forfeited their humanity the moment they cast their first dark spell. Or so Harry said; Hermione knew it for the load of bollocks it was.

These days, it seemed like she was the only one who did. The media, what little remained of it, was firmly under Harry's thumb. These days, there was only the Prophet and two wireless stations, one of which was all music. The Quibbler had been shut down, with extreme prejudice, after it had failed to comply with the most recent batch of content regulations. Even Witch Weekly was gone, not that it had been much of a blow, at least to Hermione. Still, a little mindless entertainment would have made life a bit more bearable. The grim militancy that Harry enforced cast an eternal pall the wizarding world, a paranoia that exploited the horrors of the war and used them as justifications for atrocities that were, at least to Hermione, worse than anything done in Voldemort's name.

Voldemort may have incited violence on a terrible scale, but he had never crushed the nation's soul. Even in the darkest, most desperate days of the first war, there had been hope of something better, something that was sadly lacking now. Public gatherings had been banned, apparation had been forbidden and the floo was subject to draconian restrictions. Wands couldn't be purchased without special clearance from the office of the High Inquisitor, textbooks were issued by the government and the slightest sign of doubt in High Inquisitor Potter's rightness was punishable as treason. And, for some reason, people were, if not willing, then content to follow him like sheep.

Well, most people were. There had been, early in Harry's tenure, a group of vocal opponents to his policies. They had been forced underground quickly, but so far as Hermione knew, they were all still alive. Her department had been charged with their destruction, so they were either alive or in the hands of Harry's own personal guard. Hermione shivered. Harry's guard, headed by Neville Longbottom, was a legend, something mothers had begun to use to frighten their children. They were the elite, the most fanatical of Harry's followers. Ron had, before the fateful day she caught him _in flagrante_, bragged that he had been asked to join. Whether or not he had, she didn't know, but she doubted it. After all, a first year could probably outduel him. She snorted in amusement at the image.

"Something funny?"

Hermione's head snapped up. She relaxed slightly at the sight of Romilda Vane, her secretary, an easy-going girl who was used to her little mental vacations. "Oh, not really. It's that the twit who wrote this report," she brandished it, "Seems to think that that snob Malfoy would condescend to live in an apartment over a laundromat. No matter how desperate he was, he'd never let himself sink to that." She laughed derisively, sending a mental apology to whichever agent had written the report.

Romilda shook her head. "No, never. He used to wear monogrammed boxer shorts, you know." she said, snickering slightly, then sobering abruptly. "Anyway, High Inquisitor Potter is waiting outside. He seems kind of upset about something."

Hermione paled slightly. "Send him in."

Romilda nodded and turned, her short, lacy robes swirling as she left. "Yes Ma'am."

A moment later, Harry entered, in a rage. "Would you care to explain this?" he spat, thrusting a piece of her department stationary under her nose. She looked at it curiously, seeing the watermark that meant it was one of her special parchments, the ones soaked in a mild truth potion.

She raised her eyebrows, hiding, with many years of practice, her absolute terror. "It's a piece of my department stationary. What about it?"

He shook it. "This," he hissed, "Was in Snape's cell. Explain NOW."

She forced a smile. "I'd heard that prisoners tend to unburden themselves when they're dying, and I was hoping I could get the full story. It always annoyed me to no end that he wouldn't talk at his trial. He's the only man I've ever seen who could resist Veritaserum. Of course, he was such a stubborn bastard, so it didn't really surprise me." She knew she was babbling, but she didn't really care.

Harry laughed, his rage dissipating as quickly as it always did. "Just like you, Hermione, to be curious enough to brave Azkaban itself. I don't think it worked though; the things he wrote are obviously complete nonsense. One thing you'll like though; he left you his books. It's a pity he left everything else to Malfoy, but since Malfoy is as good as dead..."

Hermione looked at him with genuine puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

Harry smiled at her. "Well, he obviously can't collect his inheritance, and it's forfeit to the Ministry anyway, so I'm giving to you. You may as well have the full set, so to speak. Besides," he grinned, "It'd drive Snape batty to have a Gryffindor living in his house."

Hermione gave him a real smile. Not, as Harry thought, at the idea of harassing Snape from beyond the grave, but at the idea of living in the same house he'd grown up in. "Thank you. It will give me a wonderful insight to his pathology."

Harry's brow furrowed. "Pathology?" he asked.

Hermione waved a hand dismissively. "Well, he was obviously delusional. I want to find out what made him tick, so we can keep any more people from turning out like he did." Almost as if it were an afterthought, she added, "Having that letter would help too. It might not be truthful," she lied, knowing it almost certainly was, "But it will help me assemble a profile of him." She felt filthier with every word she uttered, deliberately slandering the man she'd so admired, but it was for a good cause.

Harry looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose I can give it to you. I have no use for his lies."

Hermione nodded, biting her tongue against the urge to protest Snape's truthfulness. "Thanks. That'll help a great deal. Can I have it now, or do you want a copy for your files?"

Harry gestured vaguely, and tossed it on her desk. "Keep it." He turned to leave but stopped at he door. "Oh, and Hermione? I'll have the floo at Snape's house reconnected tonight. You'll need it; the place is in Yorkshire."

Hermione nodded, and Harry left. Before the door had even fallen closed behind him, she was unrolling the parchment, reading eagerly. '_Dear Albus,_' it began...


End file.
